A Possible Political Backstory
by Aphid
Summary: A "history text-book like summary" of a version of the alien war in which Max is Vilandra and Kivar is Liz.


Author's intro. Please Read!  
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This is a summary of the alien war much like one you might find in a history textbook. Actually it is more of an outline  
than an actual fiction, but I wanted to post it so that I could share it with my friends on the forum. But if you want to read it, go ahead.  
  
It grew out of a cool discussion on the fan forum about the possibility of Max being Vilandra reincarnated because of  
the similarity that each was consumed by love almost to the exclusion of all their other ideals.  
  
One thing you need to know is that SAWNian is our own name for race to which Zan, Max and Vilandra belong  
and I use it in this fiction.  
  
The idea is a bit different from what we see in the shows, but it should mesh with just about all the information we have  
been given so far. Well here goes:  
  
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When Zan and Vilandra were royal infants, their mother and father were the King and Queen of the warrior SAWNian race.  
Unfortunately, the Sun in their solar system was about to go supernova and die and they had to leave their planet. So the  
royals, the nobles and their army slipped through the nearest wormhole looking for a planet that suited their needs. And so  
they did. It was a nice little planet in a system of 5 inhabited planets that was populated with a peaceful and religious race  
of people that we know as the Skins.  
  
No matter, as a warrior race, the SAWNians simply saw this as a chance to do battle for the right to live on this planet and  
so they did. And it was bloody. After several years a unique way to settle the dispute arose. The Skins had a sacred and  
powerful shrine called the Granolith. It was decided that the divine power which resided in the Granolith would decide  
who would rule the planet. Zan's Father, not being a believer in the divine power of the Granolith, nonetheless consented  
because he saw that the energy form of his body could be channelled though the Granolith to make it appear as if the  
Granolith was killing his opponent, and thus win him the war. The contest took place, Zan's Father killed the Skin leader by  
channeling his energy through the Granolith and ascended to power.  
  
Serena was a very smart young skin just about Vilandra's age. Though she grew up in the underclass of the new SAWNian  
regime, her grandparents saw to it that her, her brother Rath and many other young Skin youth were secretly well-educated  
as Serena & Rath's parents (who died in the SAWNian invasion) would have wanted. Serena and a few of her friends  
took to learning like a duck to water - particularly when it came to science. In that aspect, they even outstripped thier  
teachers. As a young woman, Serena and her freinds discovered what Zan's father had done to win power and were  
horrified. They vowed to become revolutionaries and right this wrong.  
  
Some of the SAWNian youth, in the course of their own education and rebellion, had also figured out the truth. Many  
were content to conceal this deception and took it as a sign that they were perhaps more powerful than even the Skin's  
own worshipped Divine forces. Others, like Vilandra, were actually beginning to take to the Skin faith and turn away  
from their warrior heritage. These SAWNian youth saw what her Vilandra's father did as deceptive and wrong and vowed to  
be come revolutionaires and right this wrong by sharing ruling power of this planet with the Skins  
The inevitable meeting of these two revolutionary forces elated the SAWNian revolutionaires, but caused a rift within  
the Skin revolutionaries. Some Skin revolutionaries did not want to share power over the planet with the SAWNians  
feeling that they are not worthy. Instead they wanted to keep the monarchical system of government, but simply place the  
skins in power.  
  
Thus, as Zan's father died and Zan ascended the throne, three political forces were emerging despite all of Zan's efforts to  
quell the opposing two. There were, of course, Zan's own SAWNian conservatives who wanted to keep the SAWNian  
royals in power. But there was also the Moderate forces who wanted to replace the government and share power equally  
among the species, and the radical Skin revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow the SAWNian Monarchy in favor of thier own.  
Serena and Vilandra met during this time, became fast friends and quickly rose to the forefront of the Moderate movement.  
Together they cooked up a plan to marry Vilandra to Serena's brother Rath, who would pose as SAWNian son of a secretly sympathetic  
set of SAWNian adults (one of the few underground SAWNian religious converts to the Skin religion) in order to make the match  
palatable to Vilandra's mother. It was planned that if Rath and Vilandra could somehow discredit Zan, then the crown would fall  
to Vilandra who could then change the government bloodlessly.  
  
Vilandra and Rath were not in love, but that was okay. They shared a deep friendship, a belief in the Skin faith and in the  
Moderate cause that they were working for and that should be enough for any revolutionary. Right? Well it was until  
Vilandra met Kivar.  
  
Kivar, his twin brother Kain and little sister Ava had been well educated and groomed to inherit power from their infancy as  
members of the SAWNian noblility. Their parents, deciding to shelter them from the truth of Zan's fathers' rise to power,  
restricted and greatly censored their education. As a result, they grew to adulthood incredibly nieve in the real workings  
and nature of the SAWNian Monarchy. For Ava this was no real problem. She was intelligent, but had little desire to lead  
and even less of an interest in politics. She spent her time learning to be a good warrior and mastering her fighting skills  
in order to impress her betrothed, King Zan. Kain was a great military leader in his own right and a good friend to Zan (his  
brother-in-law to be). Kivar was also a natural leader and had a keen interest in politics, but was not as fond of the miliary  
arts as either of his siblings. As a young adult, Kivar attended his sister's wedding and met Vilandra. It was a meeting that  
changed him and his view of the world forever.  
  
Vilandra and Kivar met at Zan's wedding and were quickly, and inexplicably drawn to each other. They were alike in  
many ways, the first to be noticed was thier mutual interest in politics. Vilandra, as Zan's sister, was forced to conceal her  
Moderate views but was alternately frustrated and infuriated with Kivar for his political stance. However, being drawn to  
him, sensing that he was a good leader and that he was of a disposition that could be swayed, Vilandra made converting  
him to the Moderate cause her personal mission. In the process, Kivar and Vilandra fell madly and irrevicably in love.  
  
Vilandra and Kivar had to tell Rath that they were in love. When they did it was decided that Viandra and Rath's  
marriage had to go forward, if only in the legal sense. The symbol of the planet united under a single mixed royal  
marriage was a strong symbol of unity and the Moderate movement needed it if they were to change the government  
without bloodshed. It was therefore agreed that secretly Kivar would have Vilandra's heart and that Rath was free to take a  
mistress as long as no children were created from either illicit union. The marriage of Rath and Vilandra and the ensuing  
plan was to go forward unchanged. To protect the integrity of the marriage and what it stood for, the only ones who were to  
know of the secret arrangement were Rath, Vilandra, Kivar and Rath's sister/Vilandra's best friend Serena.  
  
Everything was lurching forward as planned and the increasingly popular and well-organized movement moved  
forward with Kivar and Serena (an apparent romantic couple) and Vilandra and Rath at it's forefront. In sharp contrast, in  
the radical camps of the SAWNian conservatives and the Skin radicals there was a growing panic. The writing on the wall  
was there and unless something was done soon, the Moderates would out populate and out-muscle either group.  
  
Zan was no fool. He saw that his kingship was losing popular support and there was clamor for change on all fronts. On the  
other hand he did not ever want to share power over the planet with the Skins. He just couldn't have it. So if it was change  
that the people wanted, he would give it to them, but on his own terms. His plan was to replace the monarchy with a  
President-for-life which was appointed by the Divinity via the power of the Granolith, the same way his father was given the  
post before him. He would consent to go through the ritual with the leader of the Skin radicals, use his power as his father  
had before him, and keep the throne with a greater sense of legitmacy, then his son would do the same at his death and  
things would progress as if nothing had happened.  
  
It as good as it sounded, the plan was a disaster. It was not, as Larek, a ruler of a neighboring planet would remark, too much  
change too quickly. For as we know, change was what the people wanted. The problem is it was change that no one  
wanted. Zan had even failed to properly prepare his own conservatives who were rather uncomfortable at the  
importance placed on the Skin religion in this plan. No one was happy, even Kain could see this.  
  
Kain was a SAWNian conservative to the core quite unlike his brother Kivar, and a good friend of Zan's. However he saw  
that saving Zan's throne was impossible and it was just a matter of time until he was discredited and removed from the  
throne. He was unaware of Vilandra's Moderate feelings, but he was also ambitious and saw an opening for him to gain the  
throne for himself. Since he could not marry Vilandra (as she was promised to Rath) it would simply involve a coup and for  
that he needed a plan.  
  
Militarily he could see that the Moderates outnumbered the conservatives because they were winning more people to it's  
ranks all of the time. Overpowering them militarily was quite out of the question. What he needed was a scandel. One that  
propelled the planet into chaos necessitating the crowning of a new moderate leader who was in fact, not as moderate as they thought.  
  
Kain started to make it appear as if Vilandra and Kivar were having a torrid tryst and spread the rumors of this far and  
wide. Ironically they were, but Kain was completely unaware of this fact. Next Kain forged several religious letters to the  
leader of the Skin radicals in which Vilandra, said that she and Kivar, feeling immense guilt and suicial tendencies, had  
decided that the SAWNian race should have perished and never set foot on the Skin planet and that they wanted to plot  
with the radicals to kill the royal four, including herself, in order to make way for a new order and the leadership of the  
skins. Swallowing the bait hook, line and sinker, the Rebel Skins plotted to exterminate the royal four, plus any other  
SAWNians who happened to be around. Kain knew when the attack was going to happen (since he, not Vilandra, had been  
corresponding with the Skin Rebels) and stuck close to Kivar. In the chaos of the coup the Skin Rebels killed the royal four  
and Kain killed Kivar, posed as Kivar himself (since he was Kivar's twin) and blamed his own murder on the Skin rebels.  
  
The point of this switch was twofold. One, Kivar was a known moderate and quite sympathetic besides because his  
lover had just been killed. As such Kivar much more likely to be made leader of a planet in chaos than himself. To Kain's  
credit, he was right in this respect and after the coup "Kivar", who was now actually Kain, was quickly crowned King.  
Secondly, in the eyes of the Skins, it would appear that this was also a moral victory for them since Kivar was Vilandra's  
love and he, supposedly shared Vilandra's intense religious belief that the Skins should be the rulers of the planet. With  
more letters to the rebel skins, he was able to buy enough time to stabilize his control over the planet before the rebel skins  
discovered what he had done. It was the perfect plan, or it would have been, if it had not been for Zan's mother and Serena.  
  
Vilandra and Zan's mother, woefully uninformed, but inconsolable with grief at the loss of the royal four, set upon a  
plan to return them to power. She would send their essences to earth in the bodies of humans and when they were grown  
and strong they would return to reclaim the throne. Now even Vilandra and Zan's mother had heard the story of Vilandra and  
Kivar's tryst (which had been spread by Kain). Unwilling to believe that Vilandra was a Moderate in her own right, she  
convinced herself that Vilandra had been seduced and used by Kivar in order to attain the throne for himself. In order to  
keep this from happening again (since she believed Kivar to still be alive) she decided that the sex of her children would be  
reversed when they were placed in human bodies. Vilandra would be placed in the body of a human male and Zan would  
be placed in the body of a human female. Immensely disillusioned at Zan's huge tactical mistake which brought  
about all this strife, she decided she would also allow her children to think that they were each other so Vilandra would  
have the throne and Zan could not make such a horrible mistake again. Thus Vilandra, in her new male form, was  
now to be called Zan and would be betrothed to the reincarnated Ava who was a true and loyal conservative.  
Zan, in his new female form, could have Vilandra's betrothed: Rath. After all, she was completely unaware of the fact that  
Rath was indeed a skin. She took the essences of her children, duplicated them, had them put into the two sets of human  
embryos that her scientists had constructed and sent the two scientists with two loyal conservative military officers (one of  
whom was Ava's father) off to earth. It was her only hope.  
  
Serena was also consumed with grief because her brother and her best friend had been killed in the coup. It ended up with  
Kivar being crowned, which did make her happy because she and Kivar had become good friends during his time with the  
Moderate movement and she was sure that he would be a good and just King and move foreward with Vilandra and  
Rath's political vision. However all of this had happened so quickly that she had not even had a chance to talk to him  
before the coronation! When she did finally track Kivar down, he was in the crowded reception hall the night  
following his cornonation greeting the members of his new political cousel. She caught Kivar's eye from across the room  
and was chilled by what she saw in it. There no cry of joy and rush to be by her side, not even a flicker of recognition.  
Those eyes were empty and cold. She pushed her way towards him and introduced herself as she would to a stranger.  
He was polite and charming, but he did not recognize her, at all. She was numb. That was all the proof she needed. This  
was not Kivar before her and she had no way of convincing anyone else. Sure Rath might have been able to do it, he was  
so much better at these things than she was, but all she had was her knowledge of science, which was not going to do  
much good now. Or was it?  
  
She knew if that was not Kivar, then there was only one person it could be: his twin brother Kain. If that was the case,  
then the body that was to be buried was actually Kivar and she had to get his soul before it was sent to go live in the  
afterworld. She managed to sneak into where the body was being held and took Kivar's soul. A freind of hers, a good  
scientist and a conservative SAWNian spy for the Moderate movement, informed Serena of the Queen mother's plan to  
send the royal four to earth. Elated, Serena decided that Kivar must be sent to be with Vilandra and followed them to earth  
with Kivar's essence in her own spaceship.  
  
She arrived several years after the royal contingent because her ship was a little slower, but managed not to crash land as  
they had (obviously the work of Ava's father, a horrible flyer despite his high opinion of his own abilities) and thus avoided  
human detection of her landing. She had figured out the way she was going to insert Kivar's essence into the human embryo  
and also, with the knowledge of the Queen mother's scientist's methods, figured out how to time the embryo's maturation it  
so that Kivar would be the same age as the royal four during his life on earth. The next thing she needed was a female  
embryo to insert him into. After all, if Vilandra was to be inserted into a male, then Kivar should be in a female so that  
they could be together in this lifetime, even if they could not have been in the last one. Her opportunity to find an embryo  
came quite suddenly, she was tracking Ava's father in order to find where he had hidden the royal pods. When he  
killed a young woman for her car, the coronor's report said that she was three months pregnant with a little girl! Serena  
took the fetus from the morgue after the autopsy. She reanimated it by inserting Kivar's soul and lifeforce, nursed it  
to health and left it, as a healthy newborn, at the adoption agency in Roswell, New Mexico the nearest town to the site  
where the royal pods had been left. The little girl was adopted by a nice young couple, the Parkers, and was named Liz.  
  
It was too bad that Serena had not been able to allow Kivar to mature in a pod, it would mean that the evolved human  
powers the royal four had would not be present in Kivar. His human female body would be totally human with all of it's  
physiology and the limitations without the benefit of genetic engineering. On the other hand, it was the best she could do.  
She needed to get back home, for her husk was wearing out and she needed to be back in space before it gave out entirely,  
so with a sigh and a prayer, she climbed aboard the spaceship and went home. 


End file.
